Note 1 — Section 233. A CURIOUS STORY⁠[1]. I.

This story is taken from Mr. W. J. J. Spry’s most interesting account of ‘The Cruise of the Challenger’. The Tristan d’Acunha group of islands (die Erfrischungsinseln), so named from the Portuguese navigator who discovered it early in the 16th century, lies in mid-ocean, about 1300 miles south of St. Helena and 1500 miles west of the Cape of Good Hope, nearly on a line between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn; it is thus probably the most isolated and remote of all the abodes of men. The group consists of the larger Island of Tristan and two smaller islands—Inaccessible Island, about 18 miles south-west from Tristan, and Nightingale Island, twenty miles south of the main island. Tristan only is permanently inhabited, the other two are visited from time to time by sealers. In the year 1829 Tristan was inhabited by 27 families; in 1836 it possessed a population of 42; in 1852 the population had risen to 85, and in 1867 this number was only exceeded by one.